Changing viewing habits demand new approaches to marketing

The way we watch TV and video has changed significantly over the last few years. While TV screens still take up 91% of our viewing time,1 we can now watch video content wherever, whenever, and however we want.

While this is great for consumers, it can create complexity for marketers. But there’s also opportunity — you can use data and automation to reach audiences more effectively — wherever they’re choosing to watch.

In 2017, video consumption on over-the-top streaming devices rose 35% year-over-year among adults 18 to 49.2 And according to Nielsen, the average 18-24 year-old spent more than 90 minutes watching video on smartphones in Q2 2017.3 With access to a wide range of premium video inventory in DoubleClick Bid Manager, you can reach your audience in any digital environment where they choose to watch:

YouTube reserve and auction inventory, including Google Preferred and TrueView

Premium broadcasters and publishers, with whom you can negotiate direct deals

Tip #2: Use advanced segmentation over and above basic demos

Campaigns that segment mobile audiences using intent-based signals have 20% higher ad recall lift, and 50% higher brand awareness lift, compared to campaigns that only use demographic information.4 So, when buying YouTube inventory, you can use intent and interest signals, such as consumer patterns or life stages, to find audiences that are in the right mindset for your brand or product. Across other publisher inventory, you can use audience lists with Programmatic Guaranteed to layer your own audiences onto your negotiated reservation deals.

DoubleClick’s fraud and verification reports let you confirm that your ads are shown to real people, and that they show up where you expected them to. DoubleClick uses live reviewers, automatic filters, and machine learning to block invalid and fraudulent activity.

You can also optimize your campaigns to placements that meet the MRC definition for viewability (half of the video ad is in view for at least two seconds) or more stringent requirements (such as viewable on screen for at least 10 seconds), or in view and audible on video completion. These tools can help you control for quality across your campaign.

Tip #4: Build relevant experiences based on real-world events

Try out Real-time triggers in DoubleClick Bid Manager to sync the delivery of digital ads with real-world events, such as TV airings, sports results, or the weather. That way, you can show a message to digital audiences that is relevant to their environment and help them take action on something that is already top of mind.

For example, 80% of sports viewers say they use a computer or smartphone for related activities while watching live sports on TV.5 You can reach this audience by serving digital ads immediately after your commercial airs during a big, televised sports game. You can adjust your awareness message with shorter, mobile-friendly ads

You can also trigger ads based on the weather (e.g., when it starts to rain, serve ads for umbrellas) and sports results (e.g., when a player scores in the game, immediately serve congratulatory ads on all the right devices). That way you can coordinate your campaigns to the moments that matter, when your potential customers are paying attention.

Tip #5: Expand reach to engaged audiences even on non-video content

While people love watching video, they’re also spending a lot of time engaging with non-video content. In fact, news, sports, entertainment, and gaming apps together make up nearly an hour of time spent on mobile every day.6 These audiences can offer opportunities to expand campaign reach beyond your traditional in-stream placements.

You can reach these audiences with out-stream placements — video ads in non-video content, such as in-feed, in-article, and interstitial placements. You can access these placements through direct deals in DoubleClick for Publishers or use the native video format in DoubleClick Bid Manager.

Tip #6: Align metrics with both TV and digital buying teams

TV and digital buying teams often use different KPIs to measure campaign performance, which can make it tough to compare results. If you buy linear TV in Bid Manager, you can align teams on Brand Lift metrics (i.e. search lift) to compare digital video performance — and even linear TV, too. This can help you move beyond reach and frequency proxies to get at the real impact your ads have on brand interest.

Even if your teams aren’t quite ready for that step, you can use TV Ad Explorer to get TV metrics in the same place as your digital reporting. Digital buyers can access reach and airings data for all of a brand’s linear TV campaigns (regardless of where the media is bought). By having the information in one place, you can identify opportunities to complement TV buys with digital media. For example, you can better understand if your TV campaign reached your intended audience, and then plan a digital campaign to adjust that reach.

Tip #7: Understand the impact of your campaigns from awareness to attribution

Research suggests that leading marketers — those who exceeded their top 2016 business goals — are 75% more likely than the mainstream to have moved to a more holistic model of measurement in the last two years.7 DoubleClick offers a full-funnel measurement solution to help you measure your marketing strategies from awareness to attribution.

Use Active View, Unique Reach, and Brand Lift metrics to measure whether people are seeing your messages, how many unique people your campaigns reach, and how your ads drive lift in awareness and perception of your brand. You can also use trusted third-party metrics to validate your campaign results since DoubleClick is integrated with the largest third-party measurement providers.

For lower-funnel measurement, use the attribution solution and offline conversion API in DoubleClick to understand how your advertising campaigns drive online conversions and offline sales lift. This will help you close the loop on the impact your advertising dollars have on bottomline business metrics.

Tip #8: Quickly act on insights to improve campaign performance

Don’t wait until the end of a campaign to tweak strategies. DoubleClick provides fast reporting with uniform metrics for all formats and tactics. You can set up your campaigns to optimize automatically around common goals like viewability or conversions.

Recent research found that brands that consolidated their reservation and open auction ad buys in a single solution like DoubleClick reached 11% more unique consumers for the same impression investment.8 They were also 29% more efficient in their campaign execution (measured in time saved).9 Use Programmatic Guaranteed in Bid Manager to bring your reservation deals into the same tool where you buy auction inventory.

Tip #10: Maintain a learning mindset

In a recent survey conducted by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, only 30% of respondents said that the marketing professionals in their organizations are “very knowledgeable” about the changing viewing trends and the resulting advertising needs.

But there is a business imperative to staying close to these consumer trends: the “very knowledgeable” businesses are three times as likely to say they’re adapting their strategies to a “great extent” in response to changing viewing trends, compared to their less knowledgeable peers.10

7. Econsultancy and Google, Analytics and Measurement Survey, 2016, Base: n=502 marketing and measurement executives at North American companies with over $250MM in revenues / n=132 leading marketers; n=305 mainstream marketers.